Summertime Travel

We have been all over the place this summer! After coming back from Syracuse, we flew to Washington to visit my sister Sarah and her family in Duvall. We also saw my dear friend Pamela and her family while we were there. Our trip was most enjoyable. We saw so many beautiful places and loved just being with the wonderful Harpers! We returned from Washington and had a day to do laundry before driving to Brian Head, Utah for a Dixon family reunion. Cameron's parents invited their children and grandchildren to stay together at a cabin for almost a week. We took turns fishing out at Panguitch lake, went to a 4th of July parade in Parawon, played games and just had fun together. Recognizing this was our last time to be together with the Dixons for a while we tried to soak up every minute. We are now home and just packing before our departure to upstate NY on July 25th. The adventures are just beginning! (Unfortunately, the pictures are all out of order. I'm still figuring out blogger... It doesn't work how I wish it would.)

SYRACUSE!

We are moving to upstate New York at the end of July. Thanks to some buddy passes on Jet Blue, Cameron and I were able to go out there and after hard work and seeing way too many junky places, we secured a great place to live. The picture shows our front door. Open it and go upstairs to find where we are. We will be living just 10-15 minutes from campus where Cameron will be taking courses in the Telecommunications and Network Management graduate program. He was awarded a full ride through Scholarship for Service and in exchange will work for a government agency for two years following his program. We will miss being close to family! If you're ever in New York and want to come see us you are more than welcome!


Below: Roses and our side yard

Our backyard

Eleanor Esme Dixon

She's here! In fact she has been here for over a month. Eleanor came to us early Friday the 4th of June. (Exactly 6 years from the night Cameron and I met.) We are glad that she waited for me to finish teaching first grade. She didn't wait for us to move into our new place however, so she was in on that fun just 2 days after she was born. There wasn't a whole lot of recovery time...or getting used to a newborn, but we are grateful for our beautiful little one and our lovely home. Eleanor has brought so much joy into our family. We are excited to watch her grow!

Eleanor meets Grandma and Grandpa Dixon

Cameron's 2009

2009 By the numbers:

1791 tasks completed (tracked by Remember the Milk)
--> 669 personal tasks, 422 for school

52 credits taken/18 courses
-->GPA for year 3.8055

Books read (not school):

Life of Joseph Smith the Prophet
Book of Mormon
Doctrine and Covenants (twice)
The Character of Jesus
A Better Pencil
Letting Go of the Words
How to Lie With Statistics
The Elements of User Experience

~17 times running (ouch)
-->avg. distance 4.5 miles
-->1 10k, 1 5k

7794 times my computer says I've checked Gmail (this must be wrong)
1929 @ lds.org (homepage, this is probably correct)

3 '09 New Years goals actually met (out of 10, ouch)
1 baby expected (girl)

'Elloh Grandfahtha

Hi Internet.

We are crazy busy people! Emily is feeling so adequate at teaching first grade that she decided to get a job for half an hour today at McDonald's (This is a true story). Unrelated to McDonald's, Emily has been somewhat sickly because of the snot-filled, nose-pickin', bum-grabbing, swine-flu infested AHEM very cute 1st graders.

Cameron loves good music, good books, and the Internet.

Real Frogs

No fake ones here. Go meet my internet friend at www.real-frogs.com.

And Now, Abandonware

I've noted twice before instances under which I'll "violate" current copyright law. Here's another.

Emily has a teacher friend who helped her out by giving her hundreds of 1st grade lesson plans, homework packets, and other teaching resources. Sadly, the vast majority of these files were created in AppleWorks, the previous incarnation of Apple's iWork line, which was abandoned by Apple about two years ago.

Hmm. Maybe if we just open the files in a text editor. Gobbledigook.

Hmm. Maybe we could just try Word or OpenOffice. Looks like the quadratic formula exploded.

No problem, I thought. Hit up cometdocs.com and convert the files to .doc's. Might take awhile, but it's do able.

No go. Cometdocs can't do it. And there does not exist a free converter for .cwk files.

Why free, you ask?

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution gives the purpose of copyright and patents:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

The purpose is to promote progress; that's the goal. How? Secure monetary incentive for discoveries for a limited time. This provides creators with a reason to create, protects the incentive, and ultimately moves technology forward. The Founders were Inspired Men.

So what money is Apple making from AppleWorks? ...I'm sure if it existed, they'd find it.

Enter Google. A few torrent searches, a 20 minute download, and TA-DA, AppleWorks is up and running.

Need AppleWorks? Grab the torrent here.